


Reunion Collection

by The_Otter_Knight



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Another Story spoilers, Dark, Day 9 AU, Dialogue?, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, F/M, Gen, Love/Hate, M/M, Multi, Reader is Main Character (Mystic Messenger), Saeran Route Spoilers, V Route Spoilers, What Dialogue?, implied - Freeform, in the sense that it’s mentioned a lot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-01-29 05:49:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12624573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Otter_Knight/pseuds/The_Otter_Knight
Summary: Trauma, Obsession, Conflict, and Reunion. The last collection is marked incomplete but you only need one of them to actually finish it, don’t you? Rika is a fine choice.Rika x reader oneshots that may or may not feature other characters. May be branched so it isn’t Rika focused, either but will contain mentions of Rika/reader or just Rika in general. (Prompts? Go for it.)1. Rika is the reason why people are afraid of the dark, but you’re not afraid of her, are you?2. Rika doesn't know what to consider you as - a bug to be trampled on or someone to be saved.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’m either going to make this into a Rika oneshot collection or I’ll dump all my Mysme writings into here. .. I’m not sure. I didn’t have the heart to collapse my other Rika stories into this one, though. I like to keep everything intact, hah.  
> Also, I have no idea where this went. Oh well.  
>  ~~Prompt me?~~
> 
> Happy birthday, Rika. You deserve so much better.

 The garden feels eternally dark - there’s a low and threatening feel to it. It had nothing to do with your company, or the potential of tripping. The lights, bright and blinding, hanging across the vine fencing is enough to see by. The glow is gentle and soothing and graces upon the smooth petals with an air of sincerity, of love and tenderness. Rika’s hair is lit up with a gentle glow, a slow sort of gaze that makes you think of her as an angel. The shadows are long on her face, cruel and unkind and don’t do her justice. It toughens her features, makes her look more monster than man.

Then she might tip her face into the light and any unease you feel melts away. There is something tranquil to the way she upcurves her lips, something soft and inviting. The way she speaks is soft and considering, her gaze never once flitting from you when you speak, her hand soft atop yours. You feel like you are her world, her attention solely focusing on you. It feels both overwhelming and affectionate - it is enough for you to slip up, to give in and surrender your secrets and sins.

The light dances across her skin in the garden, fresh blades of green brush against her wrists as she pulls up something that looks like a rose. Dimly, you are aware that Ray thinks that that is your favourite. Perhaps it is now, with the way she curls her fingers around it. Her eyes remain on you. You never understand why poets give life to blue eyes - hers are the fruits of the earth, the bend of the trees and the lap of the wind. There’s a tenderness, a softness to the angles of her face, something that makes her look homely.

It is not the soft petal of her lips, the swell of her cheeks, the budding of innocence in her face. It is the way she looks at you, admiring and in awe. Thirsty, as if she wants nothing more than to drink you up. You understand then why people seemingly fall prey to vampires in stories - there is an ethereal charm to her, something timeless and beautiful. There is so much devotion to her gaze that you want to fall to your needs and kiss her knuckles and pray to never leave her side. Women like her are the reason men go to war.

It is not just her appearance that pulls you in - the way her hands shifted and brushed against your skin as she helped you adjust your outfit. The precise way she handled your drinks, coffee or hot chocolate or walk milk or tea - anything and everything she held in such high regard. She does not scold herself when she gets it wrong but her jaw tightens and she will try again until she gets it right. The relief and clumsy happiness that spreads across her face is enough for your chest to warm with affection. The casual way words roll off her tongue, hot and sickly against your skin, a fever that you press into again and again and if she is the devil you will fall to temptation. She is smart and blinding in her presence - so much time and devotion and love. She never turns you away, always asks about your day even though she is with you, curious and envious of your life until assurances fall from your lips like a prayer. You will never leave her, you swear. Perhaps it might be smothering by anyone else. Perhaps this is what it is like to drown alive.

“These things must be done in precise order for the desired outcome,” she sighs your name and it is heaven sent. Rika’s lips press against the rose, tender and fleeting. A soft jealousy blushes at the edges of your gut. Her eyes catch yours and you see the darkness within. The light you barely glimpse behind her is so easily sniffed out.

You have always been afraid of the dark but with her you want to smother yourself with it. There are edges to the shadows, uncertainties to the jaggedness, something hard and foul every time you peer in. There’s an intelligence to it - something curious and strong and never fleeting, just receding. It always comes back. Secrets are buried where nobody can see them and truths become shaded. It makes heroes out of fools and fools out of cowards. You are not afraid of the dark - just what lurks within.

With every darkness, there is light - not her, you realize moments too late, but perhaps you. She trails after you, lingering but never touching - not.. completely. The ache you feel for Rika is what the new moon feels for the light of the sun - incomplete and hollow. You were once warned of her persuasion skills, the curl of her tongue - she is the whisper in the night, the one that keeps you awake all the time. There are secrets she keeps, ones that will burn you alive if you dry them out, and there are sins she will commit that will make the day shy away. But she will never once betray you - because the truth is this: the night eternal is keeper of secrets. Your mind will play tricks on you, deceive you into believing something is there, that something will harm you. The only thing that the shadows keep is Rika and Rika keeps you. You have nothing to fear from her.

Rika is the reason why people are afraid of the dark - because secrets can tear people asunder, can ruin and devastate them, for every secret is a truth and the truth burns with the weight of the sun. She is honest, because honesty and truths are shared in the cover of ebony, sinful and sweet and something you never want to let go - it is the allure of the day that takes people away. You can keep her if you pull the blinds closed and shush the world. It is enough for you not to be afraid of her, or her darkness or the coming of the dawn after - you know that you can trust her.. as much as you can trust the darkness to always be there. After all, you may stare into the dark abyss, but the abyss stares back.


	2. ii ( rika )

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rika doesn't know what to consider you as - a bug to be trampled on or someone to be saved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt taken from a prompt-music lyric list on tumblr: **"I can't wait to go home."**

The slivers of moonlight on the floor marred the smooth expanse. They were like little rivers of pale light, fogged and distant. The haze to it looked otherworldly.

It was no secret that she liked to bathe in the light of the moon, the sun long eclipsed below the line of the horizon. For all her praise of the sun and its powers, she was by default, a child of the night. She has never understood everyone’s affinity for the daylight hours, for when the dawn crept in and smothered everything in its heat.

There was always a false sense of security there - the pale hours of the morning fledged hope and blind innocence. A cloudless sky often promised a fruitful future, did it not? People can get sunburned however, though, they can swelter and die beneath the heat of the star. The moon was incapable of its own light and relied on the sun to shine. She needed V as much as she needed the dark eternal cloak of the shadows.

The daylight hours did little to hide the truth - even though things lurked in the dark when the light is at its thinnest, it would be easy to hide and dispose of the truth and the frightening reality of insecurity that cannot be hidden from prying eyes. All her flaws and faults were visible then and it was all she could do to hide away from it all.

Was she the only one who felt this way? Had she been the only one dealt the cruel hand of fate, who had to listen to her parents scream and cry? To be taunted and belittled by her classmates? To be shoved into closets, to hide away from the pain, from the light that did little to hide her bruises or her tears? Rika had grown in that small little room of hers, where the only company was the curls of pure childish fear and anguish that pulsed through her. No one had come for her, not even the teachers who did little to shield her. Not her own aunt who had simply shaken her head at her mother. Everyone had tried to pry her from her closet, her own safe place, and she had kicked and screamed all the way. Even V had bound her wrists and dragged her from it.

There’s a sound then, a scuffle that dissipated her thoughts harshly. She mistook it for the sound from her dream of the pullstring light overhead. Instead, she blinked and the walls in her mind faded. She was instead left with the broad walls of the throne room, bright and colourful with cloths of ruby and gold that spilled onto the floor above her chair like waterfalls. The air was still aside from the sounds of her own breathing. Her blood thrummed like molten fire, hot and harsh against her arteries.

The sound echoed again and - _there_ \- her gaze focused on you. _You_ who sat so plainly in the corner there. A dimmed light danced across the underside of your jaw, shadows long and dark through your hair and over your shoulders. The majority of candles in the room had since sputtered out and the darkness blanketed the air. She stared without comprehension and your foot moved, a slow bob to your head before you stiffened and straightened then relaxed and folded unto yourself.

Rika unfolded her fingers, the joints numb and her skin shivered without her taking notice of the cold. She called your name then but you could only nod plainly without response. Her exhale felt like an expulsion of steam from her blood-boiled body but nothing sickly came up, not even when she moved with the grace of a sputtering fire. The strands of light cut across her skin, soothing and calm against her. Her only real ally, even now. She strode across the room, her footfalls baffled by the end threads of her coat. The glow of the light as it fell across everything that she knew to be true - it was up to her to intercept and divine the sordid lies from it.

She stepped up to you, a sleeping person who barely stirred at her approach, even when she had called your name again. Her savior’s clothes are heavy atop her dress as if it might smother her. Rika stood there, aware that you had likely not moved since your arrival to the throne room hours ago. The honesty of the matter settled thickly into her bones.

You were a bug beneath her, the one with enough sentience to cower and shield itself from her when she approached. The one who was disgusting to even regard, with a flimsy shell of protection and naive eyes that dared to stare back when she graced them with a look. Ray had chosen _you_ \- he had become a moth to your inner light - the same light that threatened to snuff him out and choke her. You were feral with your sincerity and kindness but reckless towards yourself. Rika’s fingers clenched at the hem of her coat and the anger misdirected towards you festered.

Rika knew of your insignificance here, knew how little you mattered outside your title of Special Missionary. You were born to be weak, to be stepped on by the stronger as they climbed up the ladder to infinity. You were meant to be crushed underfoot, to be shoved aside and slotted away like a dusty unused toy after you broke. You weren’t meant to be loved, you were meant to be _molded._

Just like she had been.

Rika unfisted her hands and the fabric fell loose, untucked past the palms and just long enough to cradle her fingers. Some part of her hated you so strongly that it reared its ugly head at the pit of her stomach to the point that her gut felt unsettled at the mere sight of you. It fumbled and churned, messy and fluid and hard to contain. This wasn’t her, this directionless anger, but the more she saw you trot down the halls with Ray at your heels, the easier she could pinpoint it.

She hated how easily she had been tossed away, so carelessly. She had wanted a Paradise where nobody would be hurt, where peace would be forced to compensate for the damnable silence that had traumatized her youth. Mint Eye was forced to understand each other because it wouldn’t happen otherwise, not in the world in which everyone lived. Nobody had understood _her,_ nobody had even _tried._ Everybody only saw the surface and if your scars weren't there they simply didn’t exist.

V had smothered her, had tried to pull her from her zone of comfort and forced her into the light. Even after she had escaped her closet in her youth, she had built a new one every time she needed to. Rika would close her eyes and it was there, her only comfort and friend when everyone’s words and hands had made her bleed. It had been full of the only comforts she had known and V had shattered it all. Then he had killed her in ever sense of the word except the action when he had spun the story of her death.

Her friends, the RFA - he had closed the door between them and her and taken the doorknob with him. It was all she could do to bulldoze it down and try to pull them through. Ray had been there - but he had obeyed her every word. He was still worlds away, still mentally chained to the house that his brother and mother had left him in. Rika tried - she tried to teach him how to break himself free, had attempted it herself and yet ... He was too far away ...

Not everybody could be saved but she yearned to try. She would save everyone that she could - just because she had never been saved did not mean that _they_ couldn’t be. Did _you_ want to be? Ray had said you had devoted yourself to RFA, but the messages that she had glimpsed on the phone for him ... she couldn’t be certain. Whether it had been Ray or someone else who you held dear, even now. V could have skewed your view, seduced you to his overwhelming light. Rika had been hardened by her youth, though, had been subjected to wounds and barely escaped with her life. What fate would befall you?

_You,_ who looked so much like a child in this moment? So finitely small, minuscule beneath her full height, shoulders hunched together and knees folded to your chest. The slow, steady sound of your exhales without lapse. A defenceless child, already filled with so much trust towards her because why else would you sleep so tranquilly in her presence otherwise? Why else would you have sought her out time and time again and make the conscious choice to tuck yourself against the wall while she tended to the questions and faults of her believers?

You had rarely interfered with Rika’s work, barely pressed her with childish or idiotic questions. The answers you sought were given - not just because you had asked but because there had been genuine curiosity there. That alone had smoothed the edges of the hammer-blows behind each word you uttered. You are by no means docile, but neither are you reckless.

Perhaps the reason why Rika had hated you so was not because you had replaced her, but perhaps you were the echo of her youth, the child who had found solace in the closet after she had been condemned to it. There has always been pain in that knowledge, that the haven that she so readily believed to be her haven had been her prison for so long. That it still trapped her, even now. Had V even pulled her out? Or had she pulled him in and shunned him for the flashlight he brought to scope his way through the darkness?

Had you simply hidden yourself away, away from the truths and the hardships of the world like she had done? Is that why you took Ray’s hand and blindly trusted him, trusted his _innocence?_ Was any comfort better than none, from a complete stranger? Is that why you stayed? Or had she forced it upon you, forced that trust and companionship through bribery and falsehoods? Had she only pressed her hands through the cracks and dragged you into her own room of darkness, shielded from everyone else? Did she simply only see what she wanted to?

Her outer robe fell easily away from her body, slid from the phantom bruises that had faded long ago. The aches from her past never went away and had burned and blemished her. It was back when she had foolishly followed those who should have known better. How stupid of her to believe that those people would have saved her.

She would save you, though. That was her full intention, and as her saviour’s clothes fell across you, a shield — _a closet door_ — against the world, she knew she could very well die trying.

Rika’s back slid against the wall beside you, her fingernails clipped against the screen of your cellphone as she set it away from you, safe from any potential of flailed limbs. She knew little of your history, but it was enough for her to see the truth even within the dark: that you could be saved, that redemption could be brought to any and all within the RFA. In the meantime, though ...

Her eyes slid towards the meek and unassuming lines of silver in the middle of the room as it danced upon the floorboards. Her eyes closed and her hand settled along your wrist, fingers tangled along your pulse. For a moment, she was a child alongside you, at war with the world. Her mind’s walls crept back in and she is seven, dress tangled with her ankles and tears wet in her eyes but dry on her cheeks. In her mind, she was not alone this time.

Yes, in the meantime, she would figure out whose room the two of you were in - because now you sat curled up with her in her closet - whose safe haven built from lies and suffering and self-shielding. Was it her closet, both broken and patched and made of quilted lines of puzzle piece dreams? Or yours, completely separate and foreign to her touch, to her mind and to her questions? She was the Saviour, the Keeper of Truths. She could not answer the question of who was in the attempt of saving whom, but she supposed that when the answer came, it would suffice for the other question as well - of whose room she imagined now for comfort. Wherever they chose to shield themselves from, wherever they found solace — the sliver of light that slid through the crack of the door ... was that the door as it closed upon them, or had it been the moment she had started to push it open?


End file.
